


Before the Feast

by cinnamon_dill



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 01:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5987356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_dill/pseuds/cinnamon_dill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I haven’t told anyone what happened. The Capitol didn’t air most of it. And who is there to tell?</p><p>Katniss looks back on a night in the cave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Feast

I haven’t told anyone what happened. The Capitol didn’t air most of it. And who is there to tell?

One of these empty days, I think, I’ll catch him as he’s leaving his house. I’ll walk with him wherever he goes, and we’ll finally talk about it. I rehearse the idea of calling out his name. Maybe I’ll take him with me to the woods, so we can be alone, away from the curious eyes of all the people who watched us kissing on TV. (Or maybe not. The idea of being alone in the woods with him again is making my throat constrict without warning.)

Whenever I’m getting ready for bed and see that his light is on, like it is tonight, I get as far as turning in his direction like the needle of a compass. But then I stop, turn back to my room, and finish whatever I was doing. I undo the braid in my hair; I slip under the blankets. And the silence gets longer.

Our last real conversation must have been right after the Games, when they moved us into two adjacent houses in Victors’ Village, maybe. I don’t remember what we said. He was quieter even then, and I blamed it on the leg for awhile. He had to walk with a cane as he was getting used to the prosthetic limb they gave him in the Capitol, and it looked painful. But it couldn’t explain the sudden gulf between us. Ever since the train ride home, when he learned that I’d played him for the crowd, he can’t meet my eye.

He’s alone in his new house, unlike me. His parents and brothers still live at the bakery. Easier that way—no point for all of them to traipse across town every morning in the dark to light the ovens. Instead, Peeta does that alone, a hobbling shadow in the light of his doorway before dawn.

I buy a lot more bread than we need, and most of it I give away to friends at the Hob. But it offers me a chance to see him, and it helps to see him. It grounds me: _Here is Peeta, the boy I went to the Games with. We survived. Here he is, surviving._ He looks like himself the most when I see him in the bakery window, kneading dough, a streak of flour on his cheek. It’s better to see him from afar. He retreats when I come too close.

Sometimes I can’t help it, though, and I need to go to him, if only to remind me I am not alone in having lived through our hell. Sometimes it takes seeing him up close to believe it. In my dreams, I often kill him—or Rue, or Prim, or Gale, or my mother or father. I shoot them with arrows to the heart, to the eye socket, to the neck, and watch them collapse to the sound of cannonfire. I dream of being trapped in a nest of tracker jackers that crawl into my screaming mouth and sting my insides. I dream that I am flayed alive and vivisected by tributes I have killed. When I wake, I am damp with sweat, shivering, and far away.

So I’ll walk to the bakery, often with no real purpose, not even an excuse—just a bad day and not knowing what else to do. Being alone in my mind has left me hollow and hoarse and always tired. I’ll see him in the window. His brothers are there too, and I’ll see him smile at something they say, just a little, and without thinking, I’ll cross the street and be up the stairs, and the fluttering bell in the doorway will tell me I’m in the same room as him, the breathing proof of our fluke of a survival.

And he’ll acknowledge me with a polite “Hello, Katniss,” and ask me how I’m doing today, as if I could be anything other than insane and miserable. He’ll keep working, rolling out a stubborn length of biscuit dough, and I’ll pretend to look at the fancy cakes.

I’ll listen to the thump of his roller and the creak of the floor beneath my boots, the other Mellark boys in the corner bickering good-naturedly. His cakes are all beautiful. I’ll watch him from the corner of my eye and try to soak in his steadying presence. There he is, my fellow tribute, alive. What we fought for. What almost never happened. I’ll take a full breath of the warm scent of whatever’s in the oven, something sweet and buttery.

I’ll choose a cake, a cream-colored masterpiece decked with sugar flowers. 

“Peeta?”

At the sound of my voice, he’ll flinch, as if startled. 

“Can I buy this one?”

“Oh—of course.” And I’ll study him as he carefully removes it from the display case and brings it up to the counter. Up close, it smells like vanilla and cinnamon. I’ll wonder what he thinks I’m buying this cake for. I’ll wish that he’d look at me, really look at me, for longer than a second. He’ll box the cake in well-practiced maneuvers. His brothers’ antics grow louder, but he’s not paying attention. Does he derive any comfort from seeing me, the way I feel seeing him?

Perhaps not, perhaps he’s too hurt, too embarrassed, which just makes me angry at his foolishness to have believed me in the first place. What an idiot. Peeta. You? You’d have died camouflaged as a rock if it hadn’t been for me. Idiot, idiot, idiot, to think any part of it meant something beyond survival. 

I’ll pay for the cake, and he’ll hand me my change, and there’ll be a moment’s relief as he looks at me and smiles, but he’s looking right past my eyes.

And I’ll leave, feeling like my guts have been scraped clean, and I’ll give the cake to a group of kids waiting for their dads outside the mines.

Four months out from the Games, and that’s the extent of our conversations: odd bakery transactions and perfunctory greetings when we cross paths in Victors’ Village. We’re neighbors now, after all. I see him go on walks by himself in the evenings. He stands on his porch with an empty-looking rucksack and squints out at the hills of District 12, sometimes adjusting his leg before faltering down the front steps and wandering away. He’s still a bit lopsided. I turn to him, but never follow. Does he go to the woods, too? Does some part of him feel uneasy within four walls, now?

I’ve tried asking Gale for advice, which in retrospect seems like an obvious mistake, not to mention a waste of our scarce time together now that he works in the mines. “I don’t know, Katniss,” he says wearily. “Maybe try talking to him.” I know, Gale. But what am I even planning to say? _Hi, Peeta, let’s talk about our mutual trauma and phony love story. Sorry you’re still sore about it. Let’s be friends._

No, selfishly, what I want is for him to come to me, forgive me, and assure me that he’s fine. I want him to explain what happened the night before the feast so that maybe I can understand it myself. What I did to him. Why I did it.

Tonight is cold and rainy, and I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about it, the night before the feast—it always comes back to me when I’m lying awake and purposeless. Prim and our mother are in the bedroom down the hall. Raindrops hit and slide down the glass of the window at my bedside. Beyond, across the street, I see the yellow light of the lamp in Peeta’s room. Maybe if I saw him in the window now, I’d feel less anxious, and I’d be able to fall asleep. I don’t know. I shut my eyes and listen to the rain. During the storm in the arena, this sound had lulled me to sleep. That, and the warm, solid presence of his body next to mine in the sleeping bag.

All at once, the memory is upon me: his lips were so soft. Warm from the fever. His neck was hot when my hands touched there, his pulse rapid. My hands were cool against him, his chest, all the parts of him I touched. 

I feel a full-body blush roll through me and I throw off my blankets. Open my eyes, glance again at the square of light in the rainy dark. I wonder what his bedroom looks like. What he keeps there. 

There is a shadow now against his wall that was not there before. The shadow moves—the suggestion that he is walking. I wait for the shape of him to appear against the yellow light. Does he dream of the arena in that room? Do I appear to him there? Does he speak to me then, in his mind?

The shadow has stopped moving. Seconds pass and I stare into the rain, waiting for just a glimpse of him so I can sleep. Just a glimpse. I will him to come to his window.

The shadow moves again, and the lamplight flickers before going out. The rain is steady in the darkness.

 

——

 

It begins with the parts everyone knows, all the stuff they played and replayed at the post-Games interviews with Caesar. The announcement that two tributes from the same district could win together. Me finding him and rescuing him and our first, second, and tenth kisses. Me realizing that he'll die soon without medicine to fight the infection in his ruined leg. The subsequent announcement of the “feast” at the Cornucopia to provide a “desperately needed” item, and the ridiculous pleading from Peeta that I not risk my life to save his. All very romantic. 

I didn’t realize how much of it was left out until we were watching the reruns during those interviews. I can only thank Cato for apparently being more interesting to watch at that point. The coverage after Peeta and I go to bed is all of him battling a demonic bear mutt. I am grateful, I suppose.

While Cato is fighting the bear, we’re in the sleeping bag, him on his back and me in the crook of his arm, my head on his shoulder and my hand on his chest. His arm wraps around me and hugs me to his side. 

It’s late, and we’re talking sleepily. The rain outside is loud against the roof of the cave.

“If I’m being honest, I didn’t expect cuddling to be on the list of things I’d do in the Hunger Games,” he says.

“No?”

“There wasn’t a training station on this in the Tribute Center. I don’t feel prepared.”

“You seem to be doing just fine at it,” I say.

“Want to fight instead?” he says, smiling down his nose at me. “You’ll win.”

“Only if I go and get my bow. But this is pretty close range for that.”

“Nah, you did all those other stations too—the knives one, the pressure points one, the thing with the spears…” he ticks them off on my fingers. “I just wanted to sit around and paint stuff. That was fun.” He laughs at himself.

“You did plants, too!” I remind him. “Painting and plants. The most lethal.”

“I’ll paint you a picture of a plant,” he threatens. “You’ll be a goner.”

“Not before I tie you up in one of the fancy knots I learned.” This comes out of my mouth before I realize how it sounds. He cackles; I swat him. 

“My, my, Katniss.”

“Shh, not like that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know, you’re full of surprises.” I can hear him smiling. We’re quiet for a moment. He strokes my upper arm lazily. “Anything surprise you about me?” 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—first impressions and all. Am I what you expected?”

I think about this. My first impression of Peeta is a private memory, and I don’t know if I want to talk about it now, in front of all of Panem. It’s a memory of starving. Hopelessness. And then his inexplicable kindness. Yes, kindness is what I remember first about him. The image of him with the burnt bread. I feel an ache.

“I think, um… I knew who you were from the bakery, and you always seemed very hardworking.”

“Hardworking? Oh man.”

“That’s a good thing,” I say.

“What am I, some kind of bread drone? Is that all there is? Ouch. Ouch.” 

“Well, you asked about surprises, and now I know you’re actually lazy,” I say, laughing. “You want to lie around and have me hand-feed you soup delivered by parachute.”

He hasn’t stopped stroking my arm. The sensation of his fingers against my skin is thrilling me in spite of myself.

“True,” he admits. “But you’re just so good at taking care of me. I can’t resist.”

“Yes, look how well you’re doing.” I gesture at his leg and immediately regret it. But he takes my tactlessness in stride, as he always does.

“Could be worse. I’m betting we have the best situation of all the tributes right now, and it’s thanks to you.”

“Maybe.” I let the rain fill the silence for a long moment. “So what was your first impression of me, then?”

“Intimidation, definitely.”

“Intimidation?”

“Yes.”

“And has that changed from your first impression?” I ask.

“Not even a little bit.”

I sense that he’s teasing me, and I give an exaggerated sigh. “So, I strike fear into your heart, then?”

“Yes,” he says. “Fear of a goddess.”

The way he says this—reverently—makes my stomach lurch with something like pleasure.

He stops stroking my arm, and I look up at him to see if his eyes are closed. He should sleep. But instead I see that he is wincing.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.” His voice is strained. He takes a moment to gather himself, and I can hear him fighting to return to the playful tone of before. “I’ll feel better if you kiss me, though.”

I oblige, softly and slowly. These kisses are coming easily to me now. His lips already feel like my territory.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He’s shaking a little now. His muscles are tensed with pain.

“Yes, yes—just one more kiss and I’ll be healed.”

“I’m serious." 

“So am I. I need you to kiss me.” 

I kiss him again. He holds me to him. My heartbeat is drumming in my neck.

“Just one more.”

Our lips collapse together. I breathe against his mouth.

“And another,” he whispers.

I am already there. My fingers run through his hair as I press his face closer against me.

“One more,” he sighs into me. “One more…”

We’re kissing in unbroken breathless movements. The friction of our lips is slow and purposeful. The storm outside is mad with noise. We only stop to breathe, loudly, our faces an inch apart.

“Now kiss me goodnight in case I die while you’re asleep,” he says.

“Don’t joke about that.”

“I’m not joking. Kiss me.”

And because I know he’s not, I kiss him hard.

—

Later, when he’s asleep, I look at him. I have barely closed my eyes. I feel, I think, like the fence that separates District 12 from the woods beyond, on one of the rare occasions when it is live with electricity. He sleeps sweetly, mouth open slightly, his breathing shallow.

The thunder shudders in the distance. I wonder which tribute the Gamemakers are trying to drown right now. Thinking of the arena outside the cave has my heart thudding with wakefulness. They’ve let us have our little couple’s idyll for awhile now, but it can’t last much longer. Even if I succeed in retrieving the medicine, if Peeta lives, they’ll force us out into the open soon after. But for now… right now I feel safe, and manically alive. It doesn’t make sense. But I don’t fight it.

I am transfixed by the flat width of his chest as it rises and falls. My hand rests there, and I slowly let it move, touching him softly so as not to wake him. His torso is broad at his shoulders and whittled narrow at his hips. The observation pleases me, and I am bothered by that. Why am I noticing these things now, of all times? Is the arena doing this to me? Is it all the kissing?

Whatever it is, I can’t help it. I feel hyper-aware of my placement in the sleeping bag next to his body, warm and inviting. I am unprepared for it. When I’ve felt this kind of unsettling pleasure before, it has mostly involved observations of Gale as he turned into a man. An odd satisfaction at the deepening of his voice and the thickening of the muscles in his arms. I’ve never even liked to admit that much to myself before now—that I was noticing these things, responding to them. But now, lying next to this other boy, in a cave, in a storm, in an arena where we are sentenced to fight to the death, I can’t deny it. I feel my pulse down low in me, looking at his sleeping body.

The palm of my hand travels from his chest to his abdomen, which feels firm and tight through his cotton shirt. Back up to his chest. Then down again. I like it. I can feel how strong he is, even after days in the arena. I suppose he was a lot healthier than most in Twelve. I caress his wide, solid shoulder and the resting thickness of his upper arm. I should have taken a better look at him when I was washing his clothes. All business, I had kept my eyes averted; I was too bashful. Thinking about this makes me bashful again. But not enough to stop.

Through his shirt, my fingers trace the slight ridges at his waist that lead, tantalizingly, downwards. If nothing I do with him is real, if it’s all for the show, how far can I go?

As I run my fingertips down his torso again, he makes a noise like a moan in his sleep. The immediacy of my own reaction to this sound is shocking. I imagine what it would be like to rip his clothes off. I imagine him making this sound while bucking his hips against me.

My hand is paralyzed, hovering over his lower stomach. He licks his lips and sighs in his sleep. It’s too much; my body is on fire; my hands feel cold and clammy as all the heat centers in me. I have to turn around. I am out of control and I don’t trust myself.

What am I doing? What am I thinking? Where are these ideas even coming from? (I think about how good it would feel, him eagerly thrusting into me. Oh, yes, he would be eager. My mouth goes dry at the thought.) Does this make it easier to act like I’m in love with him, or more difficult?

It doesn’t matter. I need to stop whatever this is. I roll over so that my back is to him and try to think of anything else. For instance—what is my strategy to avoid getting killed at the feast this morning? That would be a good place to start. But in rearranging my position, I’ve disturbed him; he’s taking a deep breath that sounds like him waking up. 

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Sorry.” I try to control my heart rate and adopt a sleepy-sounding voice. “You should go back to sleep.”

He says nothing, but drapes a feverish arm around my waist. His skin is alarmingly warm, in fact.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, dreading the answer. 

“Good,” he slurs. I hope he is still just groggy. I turn back to him and press the back of my hand to his forehead. My throat tightens. He’s burning, worse than ever.

“That’s a lie.”

“No, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good,” he says. He sounds loopy. “If you need to cook again, just… put the pot down on my face. No need to light a fire.”

“Well,” I say, more to myself than to him, and completely ignoring his attempt at levity, “it’ll be morning soon. I’ll get you the medicine, and you’ll be fine.”

“No, no, no,” he says. “Not worth it.” Even as he’s saying this, he starts shivering.

“You are not going to win this argument,” I say.

“They’ll get you. They’ll get you.”

“I can handle them.” I wish I felt as confident about this as I sound.

“I’m done anyway,” he says. “You’ll risk your life and I’ll… still die. So don’t do it.” 

“What gives you that idea?”

“I… I don’t think I have a lot of time left tonight,” he says. He pulls me into a weak embrace and whispers against the top of my head. “If you stay, I know you’ll… make it home. I know you’ll win.”

He’s stroking my upper arm again, this time with shaking fingers.

“Peeta,” I say, “just try and go back to sleep.”

“Okay.” His eyes are already closed again. “Thank you for finding me.”

“Of course,” I say.

“I was hoping you’d find me.”

“I had to.”

“This is a better death… than I could have hoped for.”

I don’t have a good response to this.

He falls asleep again, but it’s an agitated half-sleep. His breathing is shorter and quicker. His forehead is scrunched in pain and covered in a sheen of sweat.

I lie there with him and wait for the sun to start rising. I worry that there’s longer to go until morning than I think there is. How long has it been since we went to bed? It is still raining outside, as hard as ever. It could be five hours or five minutes since we went to sleep, for all the difference I see in the world outside the small opening of the cave. But it has felt more like five hours. I’m hoping I’m not wrong, because if I am, I’m scared that Peeta will die before I even leave for the feast.

I’m not sure what I’ll do in that case. The idea gives me a sick feeling. But didn’t I come into this knowing only one of us, at best, could live? Why is it so different now that we could both go home? Maybe he’s still going to die even though he doesn’t have to. Maybe he just dies anyway, meaninglessly, and there’s nothing I can do. Maybe I should get ready for that.

I busy myself by planning my course of action. Remaining tributes are Foxface, Thresh, Clove, and Cato. My advantage against any of them is in distance and secrecy, both of which I’ll need to give up if I am to meet them face-to-face at the Cornucopia. I wonder what it is they each need—maybe they are injured or weakened, and I’ll actually stand a chance at close-range combat. I did do those training stations Peeta mentioned. But I’m nowhere near as good with a knife as Clove, not to mention how easy it’d be for Cato or Thresh to overpower me immediately. I guess I could probably take Foxface. But she might not even show up. I’ve seen and heard almost nothing of her since day one.

What if I just wait for each of them to take their item and then only venture out when the coast is clear? But there will never be a way to tell if the coast is clear. And worse—what if one of them takes the item for 12 and destroys it?

My thoughts continue in circles like this for what I believe is something like an hour. I don’t come up with a clear plan. I will just have to be very alert and very lucky, and I hate having to trust in luck. It is still dark out, but the rain is abating some. Peeta’s breathing has gotten worse. His shudders look almost like seizures in their violence.

He gasps, eyes opening, gulping air into a dry throat.

“Shh, shh,” I say, though he has said nothing. “You’re okay. Shh, you’re okay.”

“Katniss.” His voice is a crackling whisper.

“Shh, don’t try to talk. Just relax. Let me get you some water.” I grope in the darkness for the water bottle and find it after grabbing a few fistfuls of pine needles and dirt with my own suddenly shaking hands. I touch his face to find his mouth and tip the bottle towards him. He splutters and coughs. I doubt I am helping. He sounds bad, really bad. I put the water bottle aside and hold my head, trying to think of what I can do to keep him alive just a little longer. Just until sunrise. Long enough for me to go, get the medicine, and come back.

“Katniss,” he says again, followed by something unintelligible through the heavy chattering of his teeth.

“You’re fine. You’re going to be okay.” I reach for his hand and squeeze. “Peeta, you’re okay.” 

I try to sort through the detritus of my thoughts. Is there anything else I can try for the wound in his leg? Some plant I haven’t thought of? Would it even matter now that the infection is so severe? Should I change his bandages again? Would that help or make things worse? Is it still possible for him to get worse?

His grip on my hand could crack it in half. He groans with some fresh wave of pain, and his breathing gets even more frantic. I can feel him panicking.

“I—I think—I’m dying,” he says. Each word sounds difficult. “It’s—happening now.”

“No, no it’s not.” I steady my voice and feign certainty. I hold both his hands now. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“When you get home—” He stops, shaking uncontrollably and breathing in wild lungfuls of air. “Tell my dad—I’m sorry. And tell my mom I tried—my best.”

I don’t know what to say. The noise of the rain fills the cave, punctuated with his labored breaths.

“Katniss.”

“I won’t have to tell them anything. You’re going to be there with me. We’re going home together, remember?” He doesn’t respond for a long moment. “Remember?”

“Tell Haymitch I don’t blame him—for choosing you.”

“Stop it." 

“And don’t be too—” His words disappear in a fit of shaking. “Don’t be too sad when it’s—when it’s over.” 

“Peeta!”

“I don’t want you to be sad.”

“Stop talking like this. It’s almost morning. You’re going to take the medicine and you’re going to be okay.”

He can’t speak. He sounds like he’s hyperventilating now.

“Peeta?”

I feel dread like cold water pooling in my stomach as the prospect of him really dying here, right now, now that we could both make it out, threatens to become reality. I don’t know what to do. I want to scream.

“Peeta, you’re going to be okay.” It doesn’t sound convincing even to my ears.

He is deaf to me. Is this it? Am I really about to watch another friend die in front of me? I can’t. I can’t.

“Please. Don’t die. Please.”

I lean down and kiss him. The ragged breathing is silenced. For a moment I’m afraid he’s dead. But then he exhales, slowly, through his nostrils, accepting the kiss, lingering in it. His body is still shaking. I pull away, let him take a full breath. I kiss him again, deeply. His lips press back. We stay like this for a long moment until I feel him exhaling against me again.

“That’s it. You just need to breathe,” I say. “Breathe and not panic. I’m here.”

He takes a few short, shaky breaths again, swallows, then breathes in, under control, and out.

“See? You’re going to be okay.” I let out a relieved laugh.

He breathes slowly, as if unsure, still sounding raw. He touches my face. I am laughing again in disbelief. Have I really brought him back from the brink?

I kiss him again. I kiss him on his cheek, his other cheek, his jaw, his lips again, his neck, his fluttering eyelids, his lips. His lips, his lips, his lips.

“Don’t you dare do that,” I admonish, with tears encroaching at the back of my eyes. “Don’t threaten me like that. If you want me to kiss you, just ask.”

And he laughs feebly into my next kiss; kisses me back. He’s still weak. I can tell he’s in a great deal of pain.

I kiss the warm crevice of his neck where it connects to his jaw. I drag my lips against his skin and breathe him in. He folds his arms around me, one of his hands combing gently through my hair, the other stroking my back. I’m afraid that I will cry. I kiss him like I can literally heal him this way, like each time I can push him a little farther back from the edge.

I kiss the swell of his Adam’s apple and the curve where neck meets clavicle. I hold his face in my hands. I brush sweaty strands of hair from his forehead. I return, again, to his lips, and can feel him smiling against my kiss. His breathing is hoarse, his fever still burning, and I have no doubt he’s still precariously close to dying, but he’s calm now.

“You’re okay,” I declare.

When he nods up at me, I feel the tears pricking my eyes and running freely down my face. I kiss him, deeply and full of hollow relief. I feel like the ghost of myself. With his hand in my hair, Peeta presses my face down to him, keeping me as close as I can be. He kisses me back with more energy than I would expect to be possible in his condition. It’s stirring up the feelings I stashed away earlier, the heat growing inside me. It’s completely inappropriate under the circumstances.

I think about breaking the kiss and sitting up so that I don’t get carried away again. But he’s determinedly holding me in place against him with whatever strength he has left. And I don’t want to stop. So I don’t.

Even as I’m choosing to do it—taking it farther than I should—I know it’s not fair to him. I do it anyway, because I want to.

My tongue brushes lightly against his lips, asking for permission. He meets me there, lets me in. I am surprised again by this level of friskiness from someone inches from death. Or, maybe, it makes complete sense. Our tongues touch, first gently, then insistently. The sensation sends bolts of heat through my body. Soon, I am clutching him by the hair, kissing him urgently.

And I want more; I want to provoke him. Not breaking our kiss, I take his hand, the one that’s not woven into my hair, and guide it under my shirt, against the slope of my waist, up to my breasts. I let him touch. He’s gentle at first, fondling me almost shyly. His fingertips brush against my nipple and I let out an involuntary noise of satisfaction. This encourages him; he gets a little bolder and a lot less polite. He starts groping my breasts and I almost yelp with pleasure. His hands are strong. I want him.

I position myself so that I’m on top of him, only vaguely aware of the fact that I need to be careful not to touch his injured leg, more focused on eliminating the space between us. Yes, this is what I want, my legs wide on either side of him, our torsos flush, my mouth on his mouth. I can feel the firm shape of his erection beneath me. Another surprise—that he’s able to get hard for me right now, all things considered. It doesn’t help to discourage the heat that’s gathering between my legs. I kiss his neck and his exhale is almost a groan.

He is hard for me. The thought simmers in my mind and mixes with the sound he made in his sleep when I touched his lower stomach. I sit up, straddling him. My hands move from the back of his head to caress his neck and shoulders, broad and substantial in a way that encourages grabbing. My hands are tugging at the fabric of his shirt. I am pulling it up and over his head, freeing his arms from the sleeves and tossing the whole thing behind me onto the cave floor.

With my hands, I take in new information about him in the darkness. Wide chest to match his shoulders, the faint texture of hair at his sternum, warm smooth skin beneath. The delicate ripple of musculature, a contrast to the heaviness of his arms. A cloud of hair around the indentation of his navel, extending down into the waistband of his pants.

“Katniss?” I can hear the desire thick in his voice, and I have nothing to say. He has propped himself up on his elbows, but I push him flat on his back again, my hands staying pressed against his chest, and I grind myself against him gently. He moans, louder than before—long, low, ecstatic. I lower myself back down against his chest and he holds me closer. He buries his face in my neck. I start rocking back and forth on him, and his gasps only make me want more. I kiss him forcefully. He moans again into my mouth as I increase the friction of our bodies.

I think about what he said earlier, about how I’m intimidating. _Fear of a goddess,_ he said, was what he felt for me.

I reach down and start unbuttoning his pants, fumbling one-handed and not breaking the connection of our lips and tongues, our mouths panting against one another.

_A goddess._ Does he really see me that way? How could he? The girl starving in the street, a goddess? The girl Haymitch describes, in his more generous moments, as “kind of surly”?  

My fingers reach the fabric of his undershorts and the straining outline of his cock. I touch him lightly there, holding back my greed. I look at him while I start stroking him slowly. His eyes almost roll back in his head. I wait for him to come back to Earth, and when he does, I’m asking him a question with my eyes.

“Katniss,” he whispers, “yes. Yes. Oh, god. Anything you want.”

And I feel a moment of guilt so acute it feels like my heart stops, briefly. _Anything you want. Goddess._ It’s real, all of it, what he feels about me. He’s not playing anything up for the audience. Why do I deserve such adoration? And how did we get here, where I’m using him to satisfy my careless whims? To the point where, on his deathbed, he's offering himself up to me to do whatever I want with?

I have succeeded in distracting him from his agony. I’ll say that much for myself and my actions. But with that done, I should move on to the work of actually saving his life. It is close enough to dawn now. What am I doing? And what have I done?

I roll off of him, unzip the side of the sleeping bag, and stand up, facing away from him. My pulse feels like the march of heavy boots against my throat. This, and his still-frenzied breathing, and the rhythm of the rain above, fills my ears. Without speaking, I gather my supplies as best I can in the dark. I lace up my shoes, shrug on my jacket, strap the bow and quiver to my back.

As I walk out into the rain, I listen for the sound of his breathing for as long as I can. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop while I’m gone.

 

——

 

I still can’t sleep.

What if I went out now, in the rain, and knocked on his door? Would he let me in? What would I do if he did? I ought to apologize, but I don’t know how I’d say it. He’s always been better with words.

I’d tell him that I’m ashamed. And that I miss him. And that I don’t know what I feel for him, exactly, but that I know I need him in my life.

Once again, I’m making it all about me. If I apologize, it has to be for him. But what can I say to make him feel better when the truth is that I’m just heartless? I remember a moment, between interviews after the Games, that I’d forgotten until now. Peeta had pulled me aside before we were supposed to go on, and said something naive about how weird it was that Haymitch was barely letting us see each other. I said something noncommittal in return, and then, looking at me with shy hopefulness, he said:

“Well, there’s just this and then we go home. Then he can’t watch us all the time.”

And I didn’t realize what he meant then, but now I do. He couldn’t wait to be alone with me. No cameras, no audience. Just us.

After I left him in the cave, how long did it take him to fall back into feverish unconsciousness? He’d been asleep when I came back with the medicine. How confusing it must have been, to wake up with the hypodermic needle of Capitol drugs in his arm, with me collapsed next to him with an ugly head wound. Did he remember the entire night? At the time, I had decided to pretend that none of it had happened. And he didn’t mention it either—there were, honestly, much more pressing issues to talk about. But I should have realized that the damage was done. If he’d seemed believably in love with me before the feast, he held nothing back afterward. He’d taken my behavior as confirmation that I felt the same way.

But I was just scared of dying. I’ve been thinking about this ever since we got home, and that’s all I know. It’s the only thing that has the ring of clarity to it when I think about what I was feeling that night. I was scared. I hadn’t thought much about my own death yet, couldn’t afford to when I’d promised Prim I’d try to win. But it was there, hovering behind me like a specter. And that, combined with whatever latent attraction I felt for him, was enough to make me act like an animal. Could I really be the only tribute to think about it? Dying so young, and all I’d be missing?

But I can’t tell him that. And a stubborn, quiet voice inside me is asking if that’s really the whole truth.

Still, I think. Still. I can’t let it go on like this. I sit up in bed, let my legs hang over the side until my bare feet hit the floor. I’m going to see him now. His light has only been out a little while; I won’t be waking him.

I pull my boots on with no socks and cover my loose night shirt with my hunting jacket. There’s no hood, but the distance to his door is short. The rain will barely have a chance to hit me.

I am out my front door and in the shocking cold before I realize I have even gone downstairs. I cross the street and I am at his door, knocking with the side of my fist, not letting myself think my way out of it this time. There is silence. I am now regretting my lack of a hood. The rain feels hard, like ice, as it hits my skin. I knock again, three loud, flat punches. More silence. But then the light goes on in his bedroom, and I am flooded with joy. It feels like the first real conversation we’ve had in months, even if it’s just between my fist and his lamp.

When I hear his footsteps approaching the door, the adrenaline that fueled this decision is wearing off. The door opens with a sleepy creak. He’s standing there, face displaying mild alarm, searching me for answers. He’s not wearing a shirt. I swallow without thinking.

“Hi,” I say, stupidly.

“What’s wrong?” His concern is genuine.

“Nothing,” I say.

“What are you doing out here?” he says. I realize I must look truly insane. My hair is slicked flat against my head with the rain.

“I just…” I stop, tongue-tied. I look at him. He’s a beam of warmth. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” he watches me warily, “do you want to come in? It’s cold.”

“No, that’s all right,” I say, as if it were the middle of the day and I had not been the one to knock on his door. “No, I’m going to go back to bed.”

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” I say. “Goodnight. Sorry.”

“Goodnight, Katniss.”

And I think to myself, as I’m walking back to my room and shedding my drenched coat and boots, at least I said it. Sorry. I said it.

I climb back into bed, watching the square of yellow light that means he’s still awake. Is his heartbeat thundering like mine? Is he back in his blankets, thinking about me? 

I was wrong. I know this now, as I sink into the warmth of my bed and feel my body singing, exhilarated. Even if I don’t know what it means, even if it’s only a little, I was wrong. It’s not just the fear of dying that can make me want him.


End file.
